Reviews tagging 'Panic attacks/disorders'

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

10 reviews

therainbowshelf's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I've been looking forward to reading this one for a long time, and it was well worth the wait. I absolutely loved this! The characters are so fun, and the world building delves deeply into each race's culture and mannerisms in such interesting ways. It's lower action than most scifi, so it won't be everyone's favorite. It reminded me a lot of Firefly and Titan AE. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, War, Gun violence, Violence, Death, Terminal illness, and Grief

Moderate: Police brutality, Racism, Racial slurs, Blood, Panic attacks/disorders, and Injury/Injury detail

anxiety from trauma, ableism

the_reading_wren's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The quote on the front of this book says it’s “quietly profound” and I think that sums it up perfectly. 

I wasn’t expecting it but I liked the episodic style of storytelling because it made every chapter satisfying. I could tell this was Chambers’ debut novel due to pacing and some lack of clarity in the messages (which in her more recent books are more honed), but the fact I still gave it 5 stars shows just how much I love her world building, and the wisdom she shares through her characters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Grief, and War

Minor: Blood, Murder, Ableism, Vomit, Confinement, Drug use, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, Torture, Alcohol, Child death, Classism, Colonisation, Deadnaming, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Police brutality, Slavery, and Violence

scifi_rat's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

Plot: 3.5★
Prose: 3★
Pace: 3.5★
Concept/Execution: 4★/2.75★
Characters: 3★
Worldbuilding: 4★
Ending: 3★

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Xenophobia, Cursing, Confinement, Gun violence, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Death, Grief, War, and Terminal illness

Minor: Blood, Drug use, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Violence, and Vomit

dancers_and_dragons's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny inspiring reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Racism, and Terminal illness

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Drug use, Religious bigotry, War, Blood, Medical content, Vomit, Animal death, and Colonisation

Fantasy/sci-fi racism and xenophobia is present with certain individuals, but not the whole, and is presented as a bad thing overall. Racism as is present in our own day-to-day society is not present.

cekennamer's review

adventurous emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It's nice to read to a story, especially a sci-fi epic, where the are no Grand Prophecies or Evil Empires or Chosen Ones Handpicked By Destiny To Save The Universe From The Machinations Of Evil. The Long Way chooses to instead focus on the "little people", more specifically a multi-species found family whose main concern isn't overthrowing space tyrants, but of completing their next wormhole tunneling job. This story may be boring to some, with pages and pages of quiet yet intimate and endearing character development and visits to fascinating alien worlds, but to me it was a breath of fresh air in a sci fi landscape that seems to care more about cgi explosions than of crafting a story that will stick with you. Also I'm a sucker for tall reptilian ladies. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Grief, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, and War

Minor: Drug use, Slavery, Violence, and Vomit

temporarilyhuman's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Hate crime, Torture, Chronic illness, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, and Death

Moderate: Child death and Chronic illness

Minor: Classism, Slavery, Racism, Drug use, Cursing, War, Sexual content, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical trauma, Medical content, Body horror, Blood, Genocide, Gore, and Confinement

beautifulpaxielreads's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Medical content, and Mental illness

Moderate: Blood, Confinement, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Violence, and Torture

Minor: Body shaming, Genocide, and Panic attacks/disorders

futureofmydays's review

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Medical content, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Deadnaming, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, and Genocide

Minor: Blood and Mental illness

troisha's review

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Xenophobia

Moderate: Ableism, Blood, Chronic illness, Grief, Terminal illness, and Violence

Minor: Confinement, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Slavery, Torture, and Vomit

millie's review

adventurous lighthearted relaxing slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

 2/5 : it was ok.

i stumbled upon the long way to small, angry planet by becky chambers through recommendation, a lot of people loved this book and hyped it up for me, i was really excited when i was finally able to pick it up, sadly, this book (at least for me) didn't live up to my expectation nor to what it was supposed to be selling.

giving a rating to the long way to a small, angry planet was really difficult for me. i didn't want to be unfair to becky chambers since it was her very first published book and first books aren't always perfect, you know ? but giving it a higher rating wouldn't have been honest from me.

short version of the review : overall, the long way to a small, angry planet is a mind-numbing read, if you're into that : cool, you'll probably appreciate it more than me. very easy writing style, lovable enough characters and good enough worldbuilding. weak plot and weaker grasp on a lot of issues chambers want to adress.

long version of the review : the good things first,, i think this book has excellent worldbuilding, the science isn't always comprensible and probably boggus but unlike some other SF books, it doesnt shame you for not understanding : sciences/tech makes things work and that's enough. the characters were nice and lovable (at least for the first part of the story.) and i love a good character-driven plot.

but thats where the problem come in, for character-driven plot to work what you need is ... a plot. and that's what wayfarers lack horribly. i would describe this book as being episodic (at best!!), every chapters work good as standalone or as vaguely tied up to each other. if that's how the book was sold to me, i would have been fine and i certainly would not feel this disappointment because see, theres supposed to be a plot to wayfarers except it doesn't happen until the last chapters and it furiously rushed, beside chambers as the bad habits of telling us things and not like .... showing them. you are told that things happen but you never see them happen and it's something truly infuriating when you go through more than 400 pages.

so, the characters were fine and good, at least at first. the point of characters-driven plot is that characters are supposed to grow, evolve, change or idk. it doesn't happen here, except maybe rosemary but eh. the pov is always switching between characters and it's annoying at best because you never get to really know a character and thus never get attached to them. when halfways through the book, rosemary finally spills the beans about who she is, i couldn't have been more annoyed. i rolled my eyes, i wasn't attached to her nor to any characters really. and that's another of character-driven plot, right? you're supposed to care for them, right?

well i didn't care for any of them, not really.

corbin and ohan are good example of that. i will not get into details about it as to not spoil anyone but i think the corbin's storyline should have happened a lot of sooner and if not then it definitively should have had a bigger impact on the story and/or his relationship with the crew because well... as you guessed : it doesn't because corbin doesn't exist in the book unless it further the plot, that's why chambers has corbin do bad shit to people because it's convenient, he's a prick and it's an easy way out for the plot to have the prickly asshole do the bad deed so the lovable side of the crew don't have to do it despite the fact they also wanted to do the bad deed. lol.

ok now, let me adress the elephant in the room by saying that if you're reading this book because you were sold on the diversity (especially the lgbtq+ type of diversity) then literally people lied you. big fucking time. i guess the interspecie f/f is the only thing that was true but even that was sketchy and not developped well. And also, a thing that awfully, awfully bothered me was how .... you know .... all the genderfluid/trans/nonbinary characters are ... aliens and not only that but it's explained through absolutely painful biological science and it's not great, folks. because the thing about gender is to show that whatever we understand as biological sex isn't real and by trying to tie gender to biology, chambers shows she does not understand any of that. ohan only use they/them pronoun because they shares their body with a host of some sort. chambers is only making gender a alien thing and it's definitively a shit thing to do.

i don't even want to touch all the things regarding race because i hate fantasy racism and this review is already long enoug but if anyone made it all the way through here : it's shit, if i didn't already know that chambers was a white cis woman then i would have easily guessed she was one.

overall, i think becky chambers only had good intentions by adressing heavy issues like racism but it was badly, clumsily executed. a lot of it came out as more offensive than she probably intented as she lacked the tools to do so. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders

there's some talk about war and characters talking about how it traumatized them.